Bumbershoot marketing staff seemed proud to announce that advance ticket prices for the popular Labor Day weekend festival are staying put “for the third year running!” (The $60 value pack tickets are sold out, with three-day passes available for $80 through Aug. 21 and $120 after that.)

But the single-day price at the gate has hit a new high — soaring past $2.50 in 1980, $16 in 2001, $30 in 2006 and $40 in 2008 to $50 this year.

Update: Travis Hay of the Ear Candy music blog (and P-I reader blog) remembers paying $25 for a whole weekend of Bumbershoot. “This is a good start, but there isn’t really a name that pops, that says, ‘pay $50 to see me,'” he said. But there’s more to it than that. Transforming from a local party to a national music destination isn’t cheap, he said — and with more and more big-name press, that’s likely where the festival is headed. “The music is the selling point, but you have all these artistic points of entry that make it worth the money, I think,” he said. “It’s tough to complain about, having a welath of art and music in our own backyard.”